It's a lawsuit at once salacious and bizarre. And Carmel digital entrepreneur Scott Jones is right in the middle of it, thanks to a flurry of accusatory tweets last year by his wife, who just happens to have 50,000 Twitter followers.

A former employee has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Jones' firm ChaCha, alleging that the online answer firm didn't have an answer for how to stop repeated tweets from Vee Jones, Scott Jones' wife, that accused the female employee of carrying on an affair with the boss.

Renee Larr, who was working at ChaCha at the time of the incident last July, says in her lawsuit that the Carmel firm created "an intimidating, hostile, offensive and abusive working environment" by failing to control Vee Jones' tweets.

Larr says in her lawsuit that she never had an affair with Scott Jones. On Friday, the Carmel entrepreneur similarly denied having an affair with Larr. But, in an email he then added, "However, Vee sincerely and absolutely was convinced there was an affair at the time."

The ChaCha CEO went on to say that Larr's lawsuit "has absolutely no merit whatsoever" and contains "significant misrepresentations," though he didn't detail them.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Indianapolis, says that Larr had to quit her ChaCha job because of the accusations, which went out to Vee Jones' 50,000 Twitter followers and generated some media coverage. There also was a one-on-one confrontation between Larr and Vee Jones in ChaCha's offices.

Larr wants ChaCha to pay her for lost wages and benefits, damage for "mental anguish and consequential harm" and her legal fees.

The lawsuit says that on July 17, Vee Jones, whose Twitter handle is @VeeVee, began accusing Larr, one 140-character-limited tweet at a time, of having an affair with her husband. He is one of Indianapolis' most prominent digital entrepreneurs.

Larr said she told the company's human resources director about the tweets and was assured that Vee Jones, who was not a ChaCha employee, wouldn't be allowed into the offices.

But later that day, Vee Jones entered ChaCha's office and angrily confronted Larr at her desk in front of other employees, the lawsuit says.

It also says that when Vee Jones was told that the police were being called, she screamed, "I'm coming back! I'm not done! I will be seeing you soon."

A series of accusatory tweets from Vee Jones followed over several days, some of them mentioning Larr's name and Twitter handle, the lawsuit says.

"I confronted her @chacha in her office in front of everyone and asked if she was sleeping with my husband. She didn't deny it, just hid:-/," said one tweet quoted in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Scott Jones arrived at ChaCha's offices after his wife left and called a meeting of employees to talk about the incident. The company founder also wrote an email to staff where he said, "I'm very sorry for the disruption" and explained that his wife was possibly suffering from post-partum depression "or something even more serious," according to the lawsuit.

Larr also has sued Vee Jones in Hamilton County courts, said Larr's attorney, James Goodin.

Vee Jones didn't reply to requests for comment.

Under federal law, Larr's success in court will hinge on whether she can prove that the sexual harassment was "severe or pervasive" enough to affect her ability to work at the job and whether ChaCha had reasonable notice to prevent it, said Sandra Belvins, an Indianapolis attorney who has handled sexual harassment cases for individuals.

The fact that most of the alleged harassment occurred via Twitter is "a novel factual consideration," Blevins said, but she added "I don't think it makes a difference in terms of the law."

However, when it comes to damages, Larr might be able to persuade a jury that the damage to her reputation was greater if it came in a tweet read by tens of thousands of followers, Blevins said. "That might go to the analysis of how severe or pervasive it was," she said.